


Fever dreams

by basaltgrrl



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Fever, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basaltgrrl/pseuds/basaltgrrl





	Fever dreams

Gene's fever broke around midnight.

Sam shook the thermometer down, noting with exhausted interest that his hand was shaking. Too long without food, too many hours of fretting. He picked up one of the mugs of tea he had been trying to badger Gene into drinking and downed it in one long, tepid gulp, wincing as he sucked down the grounds. The milk and honey seemed to go straight to his bloodstream and suddenly he was ravenous but there didn't seem to be anything edible on the bedside table among the mugs and the tissues and the bottles of paracetamol.

"Don't know about you, but I could murder a curry," he muttered.

Gene flopped one arm toward him. "Make mine a vindaloo," he croaked.

"Maybe in about a month you'll be eating like that. For now it's bland and easily digestible. I'll make you some porridge." Sam levered himself to his feet with a groan. "Christ. I'll eat the porridge, too. I'm famished."

"Don't want it."

"Sleep, then." Sam leaned over to lay a hand on Gene's forehead, confirming the message the thermometer had already given him. Clammy, not burning. Gene rolled his eyes, huffing out a breath, but then closed them and seemed halfway to sleep in an instant. It was disturbing to see him so drained of energy, so slack. "I'll make you a bacon butty in the morning."

His own stomach rumbled at the thought, and it gave him the impetus to peel himself away from the bedside. Two steps to the doorway, breathing the musty smell of the sickroom.

"Oi." So soft, Sam barely heard it. 

He turned back to the unmoving mound under the covers. "Yeah?"

"Dooon't..." on an exhaling breath.

Sam waited a moment, but Gene's face was slack, eyes closed. "Don't what?"

"Don't eat... all the bacon."

He grinned. "I promise."

"And..."

"Yeah?"

Gene's brows furrowed, his eyes opened to mere slits. His lips worked, as though he were chewing on the words. "Don't... leave. Don't go home. I can't--"

"I won't." Sam bit his cheek, fighting back all the words. They didn't need to be said right now. Gene didn't need to hear the full measure of what was in his heart. "I'll be here in the morning. You can count on it."

He was suddenly, dizzyingly aware of all the nights in his shitty bedsit he had spent the time longing, praying to be somewhere else. Somewhen else. How different things were now. How many words had been said between them. And how vulnerable Gene was like this, sick, laid out, brought low. Vulnerable enough to confess his need.

"--Can't make me own porridge," Gene finished. His face crumpled for a moment, but then misery was overwhelmed by weariness and his eyelids closed.

Sam leaned his forehead against the doorjamb. His knees felt wobbly. "Shit, Tyler. Get some food in you." But he couldn't stop himself from making another trip back to the bed, to lean over and press his lips against Gene's pale forehead, smell his stale breath and the reek of his fever sweat.

"Don't scare me like this again," he whispered, but the only answer was a shuddering snore.


End file.
